Check out Mark Hall's Twitter Acct. The buy in is complete.
https://mobile.twitter.com/BaybeeMarky_PSU
Then check out his amazing HIGHLIGHTS:
https://mobile.twitter.com/BaybeeMarky_PSU
Then check out his amazing HIGHLIGHTS:
Cael is looking for this kind of buy in... Mark Hall Trademarks.... "Wreck Hall"
- Thread starter amalone
- Start date
Or he just put a little TM next to the nickname (as opposed to actively protecting his Mark at the USPTO).
Similar to my trademarking of "Chickenman Testa's Law" TM, which relates to the inclusion of Jon Gruden in any discussion of a college football coaching search.
Similar to my trademarking of "Chickenman Testa's Law" TM, which relates to the inclusion of Jon Gruden in any discussion of a college football coaching search.
Too bad Sullivan can't get a signed T Shirt or something for coming up with that.
Right. To clarify (and because not many people realize this), the ™ symbol is used to designate a trademark that is either unregistered (relying on common law trademark) or a pending registration. The ® symbol designates a registered trademark issued by the PTO.
The latter notification (®) is a lot more meaningful (largely b/c it's a prerequisite to obtaining damages). The (™) carries legal weight too, but it's also often used playfully like I think Hall is doing here.
But then who knows. Johnny Manziel litigated a trademark dispute with the NCAA over the "Johnny Football" mark (which was registered), the murky end result being that student athletes can register trademarks, but not profit by licensing... but can keep "profits" from any trademark infringement suits brought on their behalf.
I should have been a Patent Lawyer. Very marketable legal specialization nowadays. I know just enough about it and IP in general to be dangerous (or conversant at cocktail parties). Thanks for the summary.
Spyker will be devastated none of your windfall is earmarked for Frank!
I'll call my college roommate who works at USPTO. He's in a different branch, but can't hurt...
As a patent owner, I can say with full certainty: Hall did not hire an attorney, file an application, or pay the fees; and USPTO did not process it so quickly.
True story: my patent was for a really difficult project -- technology insertion into flight control systems. When I received approval notification, of course I went to the USPTO website just to make sure. And right there on the same search results page, approved the same week as my patent, was -- I am not making this up! -- the trademark for Dykes on Bikes.
The giant sacking sound you heard that day was all the air going out of my balloon.
Amalone just noticed and posted today in regards to the trademark but really it has been there the entire time. I noticed it the day or maybe even the next day Mark changed the name on his Twitter account.
I've never been through the patent process, but as someone who is intimately acquainted with "government efficiency", I'd be stunned if Mr Hall could complete the patent process in the 2-3 weeks he's had that on his Twitter profile.
I've never been through the patent process, but as someone who is intimately acquainted with "government efficiency", I'd be stunned if Mr Hall could complete the patent process in the 2-3 weeks he's had that on his Twitter profile.
Im thinking on the opposite side of the shirt we put a wrestler face down and sprawled out on the mat and with the words Minnesota Trademark above it. But we may need to send some proceeds to wrestling for life in honor of brands since he coined it.
I see you're also intimately acquainted with government redundancy.
Lawyer here: the trademark becomes effective when he starts using it and it becomes recognizable and associated with whatever he's selling or doing with it. The registration is a technicality that gives certain benefits but doesn't define whether he owns the trademark. In fact, TM means it's a common law claim for the trademark that has specifically not been registered with the USPTO. That would be an R with a little circle around it, which I can't make with my keyboard because I'm mostly an idiot. long time lurker short time poster and hope I didn't geek myself out too much so soon.
A lawyer who's mostly an idiot; I'm SHOCKED!
A lawyer who's mostly an idiot; I'm SHOCKED!
That's the first time I have seen a lawyer type the truth
Thanks for jumping in early. We usually just sit around making uninformed opinions like the all knowing DBags that we are.
Started using it? Check.
What's he doing or selling? Wrecking.
Recognizable and associated? Yes.
Hall just needs to drive a tow truck ("wrecker") to complete the image. Or a wrecking-ball truck.
When he gets a logo, maybe he should include a wrecking ball in it.
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Speaking of both lawyers and Minnesota, I saw something in the news a while back that during the last polar vortex episode, it got so cold in Minnesota that someone actually saw an attorney walking around with his hands in his own pockets!
Actually, the use needs to be "in commerce," and that would be difficult for Hall to show for a few reasons. Trademarks are unlike patents in that you can't just reserve and sit on ("warehouse") them, you have to use them in the commercial marketplace. Trademark-claiming student-athletes are caught in a catch-22 with respect to the NCAA because the NCAA prohibits/greatly-restricts student-athletes from engaging in commercial activity. (Ask Johnny Manziel.) So if you need to show (to the PTO or the court and your defendant) that you're, say, selling t-shirts or hats with your trademark, but the NCAA prohibits precisely that, what are you supposed to do?
You could file an "intent-to-use" application with the PTO, which tolls the time when you need to start using it in commerce. But that's unrealistic because the PTO will definitely not let you delay use for five or so years. Intent to use application gives you six months and you can ask for extensions, so one year is realistic.
I don't think the argument has been litigated, but you could argue that "use" in social media with nothing more satisfies the "use in commerce" requirement. Companies use Twitter to leverage their brand and that activity amounts to "use in commerce" in several ways (people are hired to do the work, the company can show a connection between brand visibility and sales, etc.). Student-athletes can't necessarily produce the same evidence but they do use Twitter to similar ends (increasing brand awareness). And a student-athlete's brand identity will ultimately translate to commercial use (see Ramos, DT, etc.) even if that day is delayed, and by no fault of the student-athlete.
Also, the purpose of trademark enforcement is in part to eliminate consumer confusion; if fans are associating a mark with a certain student-athlete, it's counter-productive to both penalize student-athletes and create more consumer confusion.
Up there, they call that frigid period "September."Speaking of both lawyers and Minnesota, I saw something in the news a while back that during the last polar vortex episode, it got so cold in Minnesota that someone actually saw an attorney walking around with his hands in his own pockets!
Can anyone quote the actual NCAA rule? I'm wondering whether a student trademark can be used for camps. Also, would it help the trademark effort to legally change his middle name? Maybe then a "right of publicity", whatever that is, would arise, and would that somehow help his own trademark and/or at least prevent others from using it?
Section 12 of the NCAA Bylaws:
So not only does the NCAA prohibit students from profiting off their likeness but they place an affirmative burden on the student to stop others from same. That latter provision is obviously meant to prevent a backdoor family/friends operation, but it reads more broadly than that, and could have weird implications if strictly enforced by the NCAA. In order to maintain a registered trademark you need to affirmatively police it from infringements (lest it fall into the public domain or be deemed abandoned). The NCAA basically requires students to police for infringements as if they were trademark holders, for the NCAA's benefit, essentially, except the students aren't getting any benefits from such policing.
Re your other question, Right of Publicity claims don't narrowly hinge on actual names; it includes likenesses, images, etc. Unlike trademark, Right of Publicity isn't a federal cause of action though, and not ever state recognizes Right of Publicity. And the state statutes that do exist differ slightly. So there's uncertainty there.
The NCAA and Ed O'Bannon have been litigating a Right of Publicity dispute for years now, concerning the NCAA licensing athletes' likenesses (which can merely be their uniform number) to video game maker EA Sports. O'Bannon won at the trial level, but on antitrust grounds (which is why it was in federal court) and again on appeal, but an agreed upon settlement was scrapped, and it may be heard by SCOTUS.
The NCAA is walking a tightrope in these types of cases because they're profiting like Scrooge in markets that didn't exist when the guidelines were drafted and the students don't see that money. And the profits in question far outweigh the corresponding tuition benefit. But if athletes are paid then amateur athletics is a farce. Maybe it already is and has been for awhile.
Had to chime in with my own lawyer joke:
Two lawyers are walking down the beach and they see a super hot chick in a bikini stroll past them. The first lawyers says "Man, I'd love to screw her!" The second lawyer says "Out of what?"
And I was a pretty good sea lawyer in my day! (Knew just enough about the UCMJ to get myself in a ton of trouble! Haha!)
Two lawyers are walking down the beach and they see a super hot chick in a bikini stroll past them. The first lawyers says "Man, I'd love to screw her!" The second lawyer says "Out of what?"
And I was a pretty good sea lawyer in my day! (Knew just enough about the UCMJ to get myself in a ton of trouble! Haha!)
We have a couple of attorneys sharing their knowledge without charging $150 an hour & we repay them with lawyer jokes. Tough crowd!
I always loved Monty Burns' legal team:We have a couple of attorneys sharing their knowledge without charging $150 an hour & we repay them with lawyer jokes. Tough crowd!
We have a couple of attorneys sharing their knowledge without charging $150 an hour & we repay them with lawyer jokes. Tough crowd!
They'll get theirs back in the end...they always do.
We have a couple of attorneys sharing their knowledge without charging $150 an hour & we repay them with lawyer jokes. Tough crowd!
No one knows better than lawyers what assholes lawyers can be, no offense taken. Other lawyers are the bane of my existence.
And good luck finding an IP lawyer for $150/hr.
We have a couple of attorneys sharing their knowledge without charging $150 an hour & we repay them with lawyer jokes. Tough crowd!
No good deed goes unpunished.
: )
A good friend of mine was working as an engineer when he got tagged for jury duty where he was selected for a drug trial. When he came back to work, he said he found the legal stuff extremely interesting and went on to get his law degree where he specialized in IP issues. We lost touch over the years and I always wondered what happened to him. Turned out he married the sister of a friend of mine who is a HS wrestling coach in WA. We were all totally floored when we learned of the connection.
It's the lawyer politicians that are the absolute worst.
Engineers generally do very well in law school - that was what I saw with my engineer friends. They had already been trained to think like a lawyer (e.g. Details matter, spot issues and perform "triage" on them - what is wheat, what is chaff). Getting on the best (I.e. most remunerative) career track in law is incredibly grade-sensitive - especially your 1st year grades. Having the skills I mention above and being able to utilize them quickly in a test environment are all important. First years in pretty much every law school take the same core classes and there is only 1 test per semester. I'm generalizing and I went to school in the late 90s, but think this is still true. Screw up that day and you're behind the 8 ball.
Firms focus so much of their recruitment on 2nd year students, so they only have 1 year of grades to go on. Most summer internships at big firms are a joke - don't throw up on the Managing Partner and try not to be too wierd and you'll likely get an offer to work there after graduation. Again, I am long removed from law school and firm life and some aspects of the profession have really changed due to the recession, but I believe my comments are still fairly true.
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